The only fish I ever fished for with a rod and tackle were trout, a few times, and, mainly, bluegills or small perch. Sometimes my Dad caught smallmouth bass, I think, in Wisconsin Lakes, but I never personally caught one. Dad had spin fisher's rods and lures, for lake fishing and pond fishing. The spinning outfits and skills were different than for fly fishing, that's for sure!
The tackle for a spin rod is a six-foot-or-so light rod with a light spinning reel with about two hundred yards, if I remember right, of under-ten-pound-test line. The lure is plastic or light wood, like balsa, and is shaped to look like a minnow with the hook under it, toward the front, I recall. It's painted silver with maybe some green or red or gold or orange, and has this lip in front of it to make it wriggle like a little fish when you're reeling it in.
You start the tip of the rod at about 10:00 o’clock position in front of you. bring the tip back to 12:30 or so, and then snap the wrist quickly back to 10:00 o’clock at about eye level. Of course, you have to let go of the index finger that was to be curled around the line, by straightening it at the same time you snap. If you snapped right, the lure lands with a little plop about fifty feet away or a little more. You "fish the lure" through the water by turning the crank on the side of the reel, which reels in the line and winds it. You try to make the lure look like a swimming little fish. You reel it to the side of the boat. leaving the lure dangling about three inches from the tip. You make another cast. and another. and another.
This spin outfit was the basic tool box for my dad's fishing designs. It's the one I used to be able to cast in my sleep...10 -12:30 - snap-10. 10 - 12:30 - snap-10.
Fly casting was much harder for me. Dad did not always take me fly-fishing. because I was a pain in the neck...it has to do with Knots. and, the ballet of casting a fly-fishing line...I do very, very badly with Knots….
The outfit for a fly fisher is quite different, of course. The lure is a hook wrapped in shiny foil and stuck with feathers here and there. The minnow-looking ones have two chicken feathers. They're called Streamers. They are much lighter than the balsa lures. I got good at dapping them, which is just plopping them in off the side of the boat about five feet out, and tapping the water lightly with them. That's about all I got "good" at!
My Dad preferred a good bamboo rod with what he called "medium action". I think that's the one many fly fisherman would prefer, but now-a-days they use fiberglass and so on. They're about eight feet long. They are light and you flick them to see if they're lively...The best lines are called "weight forwards". They cast and shoot out easy, to shoot longer lengths out with less effort. My Dad called the line a "floating line." He weighed them with tiny lead shot beads or tubes, to fish the wet (underwater) flies.
I liked the mechanical drag system on my Dad's fly reel... otherwise you have to use your fingers to control the drag of the line. I was usually having enough trouble casting, alone, without worrying about whether I'd need to use the drag of a reel to fight a fish. I didn't like getting a bite. It meant I was going to have to reel that fish in somehow. Dang...
The Leaders my Dad had were braided… but in California, I used inexpensive knotless tapered leaders. I think they cast nicely...sometimes my Dad rubbed glycerin and mud on the leader to make it sink a bit and not be spotted, he hoped, by The Fish....
You use that weighted line with that Leader attached, to get the fly way out over the water, with a Cast. Casts can go a hundred feet, but I personally never saw anybody get that far. Thirty to fifty is about what most folks seem to get. The fly line is separated from the fly by that thinner, more flexible leader, to help make the fly look like it's alive, since it, supposedly, looks like it's not attached to anything - when it's on a good, light leader. It helps the fly to land gently but with a little snap on top of the water. It has a knot to secure it to the heavier line...or, if you're "all knots" when you try to knot things, as I am, your dad teaches you loop-to-loop connections. Unfortunately, you tie these with 'nail knots'. I'm bad at nail knots, myself!...you pray that they hold, cuz, if you lose his Fly, you are toast.
After tying on the leader, you pull about ten feet of the line beyond the tip... Then you pull out about twenty-five feet of fly line off the reel and hold it all coiled without snarls (pray, pray!), in your left hand. You do this rocking back-and-forth flicking motion, using your right arm and wrist: this should move the tip of the rod from straight out in front of you, to kind-of up-and-down. The line you're feeding out should be arching by now, into an arc, in back, then in front of you. You release some of the coil of the fly line on the forward stroke. You’re supposed to do this four times back and forth, letting out line. On the fourth forward on, every thing settles gently in the water around that spot thirty to forty feet away, with a tiny snap kind-of plop. Mine often plopped at once, about ten feet away. scaring the fish, of course...
Streamers settle in the water and sink, pulling the leader down. Instead of reeling it in, as a fly fisher, you hook the fly line over the index finger of your hand holding the rod (right, for me; left, for Dad). You pull on the line carefully coiling it back up on your left hand, making the lure look like its darting through the water, under the water, like a little minnow. When the fly gets near the boat, you start another cast...
Fly fishing is more organic, in a way. If you're good at it, you should be able to control where the lure ends up a whole lot better than with the spin rod, because you're not reeling it back in. You're working your "bug", as my Dad called them, out in the water more. If you can read water for the little indented circles and plops that mean a fish is there, you might be able to even direct your line directly to the bass or the trout - or even to a pan fish. I can't say I ever got that "good" at it.
Especially for trout fishing, I prefer a simple push-button spincast reel rod, my can of earthworms, dug up fresh that early AM, and a bobber. Flies have to drift and move with the current to attract trout. The worm just sits there on or near the bottom. The bobber floats and bobs in the current and may lure fish to the site...all the fish I ever caught were with a worm as bait. I got used to threading their little sacrificial lives onto the hook. Life to life….
Since I can't recall my Dad wading in, I guess we always fished for trout from the shore, or from the boat… He may have waded once with me along. I almost remember that. But, it was usually worms for trout. And, the worm can in the boat… Still, I can remember him casting in riffles and channels of streams near pools...
So, there you have it. By my beginner's-mind standards, fly fishing is much, much harder to learn and master well enough to catch a fish, than spin fishing is. still...both are wonders to do. A day of spin fishing. A day of fly fishing. A day well spent...
Fishing for me has always been a great excuse – a ‘reason’ – to spend the day on and by Water. The River. The Mill Pond. The Lake. The Reservoir. The streams of living water: Full of Life – of splash of living Fish…I love catch-and-release habits of fishermen and fisherwomen now-a-days: Returning that Life back to that water…so full of life…for me: it makes me feel part of Everything Living around me…in that way, I’m more a Water Woman than a Fisherwoman….
When I was with my Dad, we took the fish back ‘home’…we scraped them and gutted them. And then, that very evening, we ate them: fresh with living flesh that was delicious and nourishing: that made us feel ‘good’….
Now I mainly give them back Life – throw ‘em back – for all the pleasure and quiet and wonder they give me…
I’m grateful that I have ‘fished’ in this life of mine…grateful to and for my Dad…grateful for the skill and the wonderful lures and flies and rods and the tackle box full of do-dads you just gotta’ have.
Grateful for: Fishing…just for…Fishing….
When you cast just, just right' -
when you feel that tug of Life at the bait -
when you are carefully playing this Life into the side of the boat -
when you reach over, hold'm gently and firmly -
when you slip the hook out from the gills -
this can be a beautiful thing...
and then...
you let 'm go....
